It is becoming a more common practice to provide garment hangers used to display garments at the retail level with small panels to which small information labels can be adhesively applied. Hangers having panels for receiving such labels are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,115,940 and 4,450,639. The job of applying the labels can be tedious and time consuming and, at best, is labor intensive. Both the labels and the panels to which they are attached are small. It is also necessary that the labels be carefully attached so they are aligned with the panel because misaligned labels create a negative impression on customers. Even in relatively small retail facilities the number of hangers to be labelled is substantial and in larger establishments the number runs into the thousands. Power driven automatic dispensers have not been successful because of their bulk and weight making it difficult to properly align them with the target panel unless time and care is exercised in using them. As a result, hand application is still the preferred method.
In the case of hand application, the problem has been how to make it possible for the operator to quickly and easily separate the label from the carrier web and still have a free hand to apply the label. Until this invention, this problem had frustrated all attempts to solve it.